Time Itself
by Lavande
Summary: Discworld-Fic. Settled after Thief Of Time. Susan's time with Time seems to get quite short... Ch. 2 available.
1. Unexpected News

Author's Note: I'm not going to spend my time on a disclaimer. They suck.

Time itself

There's this thing about time.  
You never know how much of it you actually have. And this doesn't mean the age-old question of 'When am I going to die', or the very popular subject that women like to raise just before their unsuspecting men peacefully fall asleep: 'If you say you'll love me forever, how long is forever going to be?'. The problem's quite another one. Educated people like to say things like 'An hour is an hour', which only proves the fact that education doesn't necessarily mean intelligence. The amount of time you spend on a good book does not automatically equal the amount of time you spend in the lavatory after eating one of CMOT Dibbler's sausages, although your clock may tell you different. The ten minutes you wait in a queue are nothing compared to those you sit in front of the patrician. Children know that time races and creeps, sometimes both at once, depending on whether you like your classes or not.  
There's this thing about time.  
You never know when you're short of it.  
  
Susan of Sto Helit was getting ready for a date. Although of course she wouldn't have called it that, she preferred 'meeting a good friend'. So the fact that she absolutely didn't know what to wear* and felt like a schoolgirl talking to the leader of the football team was sheer coincidence and could therefore be ignored. She was good at ignoring things, for school teachers it was a survival trait. There was only so much of 'Ooh! Oooh! I know it! _snapsnap' one could take a day.  
At the moment, she was doing her best to ignore a little figure all clad in black, a long skeletal nose visible under the robe's hood.  
SQUEAK.  
She went over to the mirror, adjusting some unruly strands of her blonde hair which shone white in the dancing flicker of the candlelight, while trying to hide the black one. Tonight, Death's granddaughter would be having her time off.  
"He won't go away, you know," Quoth the raven said in a conversationally tone. "It's that way with rats."  
Susan finally decided on a long silk robe. Perhaps a bit overdressed for just meeting a good friend, but she very well knew that it made her look a lot thinner than she actually was. And somehow, this seemed to be important tonight.  
SQUEAK.  
"It's urgent, he says," the raven was eyeing some marble marbles set in a glass bowl on a desk nearby.  
"Go away!" Susan finally gave in. "And don't you touch those marbles, they're supposed to be decoration!"  
"Look like eyeballs to me," Quoth answered. "And your grandfather is going to be angry if you don't come." It croaked** as Susan grabbed its neck and held it level to her eyes.  
"I'm going to meet a friend tonight," she said. "Nobody invited you, I think."  
"I'm just the interpreter." The raven struggled to free itself from her iron-hard grip.  
SQUEAK.  
"I don't need an interpreter, I can understand the Death of Rats, thank you", the young woman hissed.  
"Anyway, time don't pass there, right? So you won't be away at all." Black feathers were tumbling through the warm air of the apartment.  
Susan thought about this a moment. Then she released the bird, which hurried to get some distance between the blonde and itself.  
"It's 'doesn't pass', mind you," she corrected absent-mindedly. "And I'm not going to stay long."  
"Fine with me."  
SQUEAK.  
  
Death was sitting at his desk, a small cup of tea in front of him. He'd grown accustomed to the custom of teatime, although he didn't like biscuits.*** In the middle of his desk, a lifetimer was standing. He looked up from the large book he had been reading, as Susan approached him across the infinite carpet with long, determined steps.  
GOOD TO SEE YOU, SUSAN. HOW ARE YOU DOING?  
"Look, I'd love to do some small talk, but I'm busy this evening, so what do you want?" She reached the desk, not bothering to sit down in one of Death's 'visitor's chairs' that were, of course, as black as the rest of the furniture.  
Death sighed. It sounded like a mountain crumbling.#  
I'M NOT SURE IF IT IS RIGHT TO TELL YOU THIS, BUT I THOUGHT YOU HAD TO KNOW.  
He turned the lifetimer, and Susan read the small letters imprinted on it. And looked at the sand. And swallowed.  
The letters read Susan Sto Helit. The upper half of the glass was almost empty.  
"Oh."  
  
*****  
  
* although there was no uncertainty about the colour; all her dresses were black. Some of them even more so.  
** Ravens usually do.  
*** He didn't like the way the crumbs got stuck between his joints. It tickled.  
# Only less tickly. _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Time:

Susan has to make a hard decision: Follow the natural course of _life_ or stand up against the laws of nature? And if she decides for the second option: how do you trick Death if you more or less learned your tricks from him?

Author's Note (again): Since people _still seem to read this, I guess I'll have to update, huh? *grins sheepishly* Sorry, I really didn't think so many of you would like it. ^_^ This is the 'corrected' version of my first chapter, the second one is to be posted on Saturday. It's kinda hard to get into the style again, as some people also requested that the second chapter be a little longer. _


	2. Three Days And Seventeen Hours

"Oh."

Somehow, Susan felt that it might not be that bad after all to sit down in one of the visitor's chairs Death had chosen to add to his 'office'. She chose the right one and slumped down, rather oblivious to the cheerful little white skulls that were decorating the heavy black leather.*

"How long?" she finally asked, her voice not betraying her inner turmoil.

THREE DAYS AND SEVENTEEN HOURS.

"Ah", she nodded, staring blankly into the space in front of her. 

I AM SORRY.

"Why?" Susan asked, still not looking at the robed figure in front of her.

I UNDERSTAND THIS IS THE APPROPRIATE THING TO SAY. ALTHOUGH I DO NOT FULLY COMPREHEND. MOST LIVES DO SEEM MUCH HARDER TO ME:

"No, I meant 'Why are you telling me this'?" Susan finally looked up, just in time to see a strange flicker in the blue depths of Deaths eye-sockets. 

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU ASKED ME AFTER YOUR PARENTS DIED? 

A tiny spark of realization began to flicker inside the young woman. Death had changed so much over the centuries, even after she had first met him. This was probably just the next step.

"I asked you if you couldn't have done something", she answered, never letting her eyes leave his face. It might seem without any expression but a somehow creepy grin to any other person, but she had learned to read it, interpreting the changes of his sparkling blue eyes, understanding Death's subtle body language. **

YES.

Susan understood. He could have done something, but he mustn't. It was forbidden for Death himself to meddle with the lives of humans, so he had stayed away from her parents. But the auditors – irritating though they were – had taught him this: it was one thing not to interfere with the matters of human beings, yet quite another if you made them change their circumstances themselves. Although it didn't need little grey-robed figures to learn such a lesson, humans had discovered the wonderful ways of manipulation before they had known any more words than "Uga".

After all, it wasn't her grandfather's fault if she found a way to escape certain death. Or certain Death, which in its way was much harder.

The only question was: did she want to? She should be the one to know best what happened if you changed even one course of life, right? Of course, she wasn't going to affect the lives of those around her like _he_ had done back then, but still… 

If you took the job just once, what lingered on was the responsibility. And minor abilities such as walking through walls, of course.

She rose to her feet, totally confused for maybe the first time in her life. She didn't _want to die, of course she didn't, but neither could she risk the destruction of the reality she lived in. _

"I'm going", she said. "I have to… think."

I UNDERSTAND.

Death watched in silence as his granddaughter left the room, closing the heavy door behind her. A small hooded figure climbed up the desk and with little clicking sounds it crossed the huge surface until it stood in front of him, looking up expectantly.

SQUEAK?

A deep sigh echoed through the room. It wasn't quite heartfelt, but it came as close as possible.

I AM NOT SURE. AFTER ALL, WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE WILL DO?

Death paused for a moment, then he pointed towards the teacup and its crumbly biscuits.

WOULD YOU LIKE ONE?

SQUEAK.

***

Susan took another sip of wine. It was her third glass, yet she didn't seem to mind. 

Lobsang watched her silently. He used to be first thief, then monk, and now he was the personification of a metaphor invented by the human race thousands of years ago. It would be quite an understatement to say he wasn't used to women. He _never had had any contact with them other than "hey, that's _my_ purse! Hold him!". And the fact that he now had picked himself the granddaughter of Death impersonated, a woman who had been difficult to begin with, didn't make this easier. Still, he thought he had begun to understand her. # But he couldn't explain her silence this evening. She had been quiet when they met, hadn't talked much when they had gone to this restaurant, and rather looked at her emptying glass than at him. He sighed._

"Susan", he started, snapping her out of what seemed to be a daydream, "what's wrong with you?"

She looked at him with big, innocent eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Does that face work when your pupils do it?" he asked with honest curiosity.

"No", she sighed. "But it was worth a try."

"So whatever is bothering you, you don't want to talk about it. Not with me, anyway", Lobsang stated matter-of-factly. 

"Look, I'm sorry, it's not you. I just had a… difficult day." 

"I understand."

"I don't think so. But it's not important."

"Ah." Lobsang was confused. This wasn't going too well, and he didn't even know why. Desperately, he tried to think of a diversion. "So… you want to go to Hunghung next week? There'll be fireworks."

Startled, he looked at Susan's paling face.

"Uh… no. I'm afraid I can't. I'm sorry."

She stood up, apparently determined to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going home. I'm… I'm tired."

The young man had had enough. He reached out, and grabbed her elbow.

"No, you're _not. There's something wrong with you, and I deserve an explanation."_

Susan stared at him, surprised. Then her eyes narrowed. 

"You _deserve it? Who do you think you are, my husband? Have you ever heard of privacy?"_

"Susan, I know you're upset, but -"

"You don't _know a thing!" Susan snapped, grabbed her handbag, turned on her heels and rushed away._

Lobsang stared after her.

"I should have brought the nougat", he sighed.

*****

* One thing Death had learned from humans was a rather dreadful sense of decoration.

** The fact that there wasn't much of a body to start from didn't make this easier. Bones had a language of their own. With many different meanings of "gnash" and "rattle".

# The first law of nature, even before "Every living thing shall perish" and "Every third sock shall disappear in the laundry forever", is this: "Men and women shall never understand each other". There is no special reason for this; the gods just enjoy bloody battles of the other kind. Every man who thinks he understands his wife is in mortal danger. ##

## Every woman who thinks she understands her husband hasn't discovered yet that there's more to drive him than just beer and football. It's called _mum_, maybe the strongest force of nature there is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Time: 

Susan discovers a way to _survive, if not keep on living. But there's a problem…_

Author's Note: It's a bit longer… Suffering from a severe writer's block on this part… I know this sucks, I'll redo it as soon as I can. Somebody suggested there should be less '*'. I know there are too many of them, but I like them just too much, sorry. ^_^


End file.
